Female-first agenda stops best candidates being prioritised
PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian is the latest to fall foul of the female-first mantra with her support for Mosman MP Felicity Wilson, who faces her preselectors tomorrow evening.
AFTER nearly two years of speculation, former NSW Opposition leader Luke Foley joined the ranks of politicians condemned to forever wonder “what if?”
Though he has bluntly denied the extremely detailed allegation made by former ABC State political reporter Ashleigh Raper that he put his hand inside her underpants after a parliamentary Christmas party in 2016, he cannot but help ponder the wisdom of attending what has always been a very boozy press gallery event fraught with the usual risks by combining excessive alcohol with the competing egos of the media and political tribes present.
Mr Foley recognised he could not fight on two fronts — clear his name and lead the Labor Party to next March’s state election and he vacated the leadership and announced he will not seek re-election.
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From the outset, Raper worried about the inevitable pressures were she to have gone public with her claims. She didn’t and the rumours grew and flew around NSW Parliament House. No blame can be attached to Minister David Elliott for alluding to them.
Allegations involving a public figure who stood an excellent chance of becoming the next Premier of NSW should have been aired as a matter of urgency in the public interest but Ms Raper’s concerns about her privacy and career though understandable should not have been the priority.
The ABC, an organisation which has never shied from providing a megaphone and a national platform to the #MeToo movement’s wildest allegations of impropriety, should have acted if she wouldn’t.
The ABC looks totally hypocritical — unless the excessively paid bureaucrats who pull the strings in the cowboy outfit wish to claim that their responsibility to care for Ms Raper’s feelings trumped their obligation under the ABC’s charter to report the news.
As a professional, Ms Raper must understand that however unpalatable and unpleasant the repercussions of immediately reporting the alleged episode might have been — Mr Foley’s behaviour was the story and she was almost incidental — or would she not file a report if she had witnessed any other leader of any other political party conducting himself in the manner she alleges Mr Foley treated her? Self-censorship out of self-interest is not a great basis for a career in reporting.
Along with the ABC, the other great hypocrite to emerge from this episode is the Labor Party which has trailed its coat for the women’s vote with the pledge to install quota queens in its ranks through pursuit of affirmative action policies, not preselection on merit. This demeaning policy is a real Pandora’s box as it opens the probability that every self-interest group will in future register itself as a minority identity and demand representation by quota.
Those who told the Bureau of Statitsics that they were followers of Gaia or belonging to some division within the ever-increasing gender LGBTIQX alphabet will want the same preferment Labor has promised women. Prime Minister Scott Morrison fell into the same trap before the Wentworth by-election when he thoughtlessly opined that it would be good to see a woman win the fiercely fought preselection battle.
He should have said, as all Australians should hope, that the best candidate for preselection should be given the chance to represent the electorate in the national parliament. Only when we get the best people will we stand a chance of having a better parliament.
As it is, Wentworth is now represented by independent Kerryn Phelps, who was the first choice of less than 30 per cent of the electors (29.19 per cent) while the Liberals’ Dave Sharma won more than 40 per cent of the first preference votes (43.08 per cent).
Only the preferences of those who voted for the truly unpopular candidates enabled Dr Phelps to claim Wentworth and a seat in Canberra.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is the latest to fall foul of the female-first mantra with her support for Mosman MP Felicity Wilson, who faces her preselectors tomorrow evening. Ms Wilson is one of the worst MPs to ever sit in Macquarie Street, which is no mean rap given the notoriety of some who have polished its benches since 1829. A protégé of lobbyist Michael Photios, whose tentacles within the NSW Liberals extend to preselections, Ms Wilson laid so many false claims before those who preselected her to fill Jillian Skinner’s former seat before the 2016 election that she was nicknamed “Duplicity” Wilson.
After media exposure she had to admit that she had not lived in the electorate for a decade and thus had not cast her first vote for John Howard as she had claimed. Other claims about her academic achievements were also false.
Photios has backed a number of so-called Liberal “moderates” (code for Left-wing) who have been fighting against reforms aimed at democratising the NSW Liberal Party, a fight that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been relentlessly waging.
Photios and his third wife, Kristina, have been active in the campaign to white-ant Abbott in his seat of Warringah.
Ms Wilson has lost the support of the Mosman branch of the party and a number of other branches within her electorate.
She will be challenged by several excellent potential candidates including Tim James, whom she beat by just six votes for preselection in 2016. Currently pregnant, she has claimed that she has been bullied by those who oppose her preselection.
The timing of Ms Raper’s public airing of her allegations against Mr Foley and the refocus of attention on Ms Wilson’s dismal record is serendipitous but it highlights the manner in which the feminist cause has done women a disservice. On the one hand, Ms Raper’s claims, which she says can be supported by a witness, will be tested by the courts should Mr Foley carry through his threat to sue her and the ABC for defamation.
On the other, Ms Wilson has claimed victimhood as a woman has been shown to have a propensity for making false claims and does not deserve to sit in the state parliament nor garner any sympathy.
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